


through the darkness to the dawn

by redbelles



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: @jj fuckin' fight me, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Force Ghost(s), Hurt/Comfort, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:29:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22607038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbelles/pseuds/redbelles
Summary: She couldn’t breathe. Spots danced in her vision, black as the nothingness yawning behind her breastbone. Ben was gone.No.The plea tore out of her, wild and broken, racing through the vastness of the Force, past stars and planets and distant moons to the far edges of the universe. There was only silence. She tried again.Ben. Ben, please. Answer me.Or: Rey, after.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 19
Kudos: 190
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange, Reylo Hidden Gems





	through the darkness to the dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starfleetjedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfleetjedi/gifts).



_Ben—_

Rey woke up screaming. Her limbs felt heavy as lead, dead weight dragging her down as she tried to breathe through the panic and claw her way back to rational thought. Everything hurt. Hunger gnawed fiercely at her belly, and she was— worn. Like she’d spent a century in the scouring Jakku winds, and now there was nothing left of her but pain and fear. She had no time to examine why; the brutal ache in her chest overshadowed everything. It sat hollow and cruel behind her ribs, crouched and waiting where the bond had always lived. 

Terror burned through her like lightning. She reached for their connection, searching, desperate—

It was a wound in the Force. Black and starless, terrifyingly alien, the bond was an empty void instead of the familiar path from her heart to his. Dimly, she was aware of monitors flashing, alarms shrieking as her vitals went haywire. She ignored them. All she could focus on was the endless pain in her chest, the crushing knowledge that she was alone again, abandoned and aching and so horribly, viciously lonely.

She couldn’t breathe. Spots danced in her vision, black as the nothingness yawning behind her breastbone. Ben was gone. 

_No._ The plea tore out of her, wild and broken, racing through the vastness of the Force, past stars and planets and distant moons to the far edges of the universe. There was only silence. She tried again. _Ben. Ben, please. Answer me._ She didn’t know how long she called for him, only that her cheeks were wet with tears and her own heartbeat felt far away. She was dizzy. She kept trying anyway. 

She was still calling out to him when Rose came running, face creased with worry as she shut off the alarms and moved to Rey’s bedside. In the ringing quiet she tried to parse where she was. Sterile air, white walls, thin scratchy sheets. A med bay, she registered distantly. She was in a med bay, and Rose was here. That meant she was with the Resistance. 

“Rey? Are you—” 

“What happened?” Rey croaked, cutting her off. “Where are we?”

“Ajan Kloss.” Rose’s voice was measured. “You followed the Resistance fleet back from Exegol, remember?”

She didn’t. She remembered the throne room, Ben’s smile, his arms warm around her. A flash of muted blue. After that: nothing. Certainly not a flight back from the Unknown Regions. 

Rose took her silence as an answer. “Do you want me to walk you through what I know?” There was no pity in her tone, only calm professionalism and the barest hint of concern. Rose was a friend; she knew how much Rey hated pity. 

She nodded jerkily, wincing when stiff muscles protested the move. How long had she been in this karking med bay?

It was a simple summary: a lightning storm that vanished as quickly as it came, the surprise appearance of hundreds of allied ships, the destruction of the Sith fleet. A victorious flight back to the jungles of Ajan Kloss.

“You collapsed,” Rose continued. “Just crumpled straight to the dirt.” She frowned. “I’ve never seen the General that shaken.”

Oh, stars, _Leia._ Could she feel—

Rey’s hands curled into fists, gripping the thin sheets until her knuckles turned white with strain. She couldn’t think about Leia. If she was strong enough in the Force to sense her brother’s passing, surely that meant she’d felt what happened to Ben.

 _His death. She felt his death._ The thought tore through her like acid. 

“And I’ve been here ever since?”

Rose nodded. “You woke up a couple of times, but you weren’t lucid. You just kept screaming.” Fatigue pulled at her expression. “We’ve been so worried about you. It’s— it’s really good to see you awake.”

Rey scrubbed at her cheeks, trying to pull herself together. Her skin was tight and itchy with salt. Her eyes burned; she wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. 

_I wish I hadn’t woken up. I wish this were the nightmare._

Silence stretched out between them for a long moment, and then Rose was there, gently pulling her hands away from her face. 

“Hey,” she said softly. Still no pity. It was the only thing that kept Rey from wrenching away. “Cry all you need to. I’m gonna go track down someone to check you over.” There was nothing in her words but kindness; a heartbroken kind of understanding. “It’ll probably be a while, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered back, raw and choked. “I’m—”

Rose squeezed her hand and slipped from the room before she could finish speaking. It was probably for the best; the words came out as a sob. 

_I’m sorry, Ben, I’m so sorry—_

The medical staff came and went, but first, they poked and prodded her, frowning at whatever they saw on their holopads. Rey listened numbly as they talked about upping her IV intake, starting back on solid food, trying a new course of bacta now that she was awake. She was thinner than she should be, even after weeks on nothing but fluids, and her skin was mottled black and blue with bruises that wouldn’t heal. 

Rose sat with her as the doctors conferred, near enough to offer comfort but careful not to intrude on her grief. Rey’s eyes were red and puffy, and there was a wet rasp to her breathing that she couldn’t seem to stifle. 

Her chest still ached. 

The pain ate at her as she assured the doctors she was fine and sent them on their way. It burrowed through her bones while Rose promised to come back as soon as she’d eaten dinner and checked in with Leia. It hurt as she fell asleep and it hurt when she woke. 

Days passed. The remnants of the bond dogged her the way starvation once had, casting a shadow on every thought, every breath. Her mouth curled in a pained grin; ask anyone on base and they’d say hunger was still stalking her. Bruised and thin, she was still confined to the med bay. The staff wouldn’t let her leave. Part of her wanted to simply ignore them and go, but she was so tired. Where would she go? 

There was no shortage of work waiting for her: the First Order was more dangerous than ever, even if Ben— even if the Supreme Leader was gone. From the rundown Rose gave her, it seemed like Hux had staged a coup shortly after the Kijimi incident, wresting control from Palpatine’s supporters. That was as much as the spy had been able to get out before all transmissions ceased. Whoever it was who’d been feeding them information, they were presumed dead. 

The Resistance could use a Jedi. The thought bit at her like a spinebarrel, sharp and thorny. Even when she thought the Jedi were nothing more than a long-dead myth, they’d seemed _good._ The galaxy’s peacekeepers, guardians of the light. 

What a pile of bantha shit. If they’d given a damn about the light, they wouldn’t have abandoned Ben, wouldn’t have left him alone at the bottom of a chasm, broken and half-dead. They wouldn’t have let him die to save her. 

Tears pricked at her eyes, spilling hot and wet over her cheeks. She swiped angrily at them, sick of crying. 

_I’m not a fucking Jedi._

Anger was easier. Her rage pulsed through the Force like lightning, furious and blinding. She felt more like a Sith than anything else, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. If she’d taken his hand… 

She wrenched her thoughts from that direction. 

_It’s time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi; let it all die._

Snoke and Skywalker were already gone. Ben had wanted a new start, even if he’d gone about it all wrong. She couldn’t— she couldn’t bring him back, but she could do this. The old orders would die with her.

Rey willed away the salt-sting of more tears. Behind her ribs, the void kept eating away at her heart.

She had a feeling it always would. 

She finally escaped the med bay two weeks later. She was still far too thin, but her bruises had faded from deep purples and blues to a sickly yellow-green. Healing was healing, even if it was glacially slow. The doctors hadn’t seen it that way though, so she’d gathered her strength, mind-tricked the night nurse, and hobbled out to the _Falcon._

It was in better shape than when she last saw it. Poe was a skilled pilot, but he wasn’t a careful one, and he couldn’t fix things for shit. Someone else must have seen to the old girl. Chewie, probably. Maybe Lando, though he didn’t look much like a mechanic. She wondered briefly if he’d press his claim to the ship, then decided she didn’t care. 

Bypassing the cockpit, she made her way slowly through the corridors to the sleeping quarters. The bed was still half-made, the Jedi texts still strewn across the small desk; everything was just as she’d left it. It was like stepping back in time. If she closed her eyes and cut herself off from the Force, she could pretend Ben was still alive and that she was just— avoiding him. She held herself apart from the Force for only a few moments before she let it come rushing back to her. She didn’t want to avoid him; she wanted to hold him, kiss him, tell him over and over again that she loved him. 

Her eyes burned, but she’d promised herself she was done crying. Jakku taught all those who survived it how precious water was; crying only left you dehydrated and a step closer to sunstroke. She would never go back to the desert, but it's lessons weren’t easily forgotten; her eyes were dry when Leia found her.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

The General’s voice was low and warm and unbearably kind. Rey forced herself to meet her gaze. 

“Why?”

Leia didn’t answer. Steps slow and measured, she walked past the threshold and into the room. Old sorrow and fresh grief marred her Force signature, but beneath the pain she was calm. 

“You gave Rose quite a scare, you know. She came by to check on you and found the nurse unconscious and your bed empty.”

“No point in keeping me there when I’m on the mend.”

She ignored the way Leia’s eyes swept over her face, lingering pointedly on bruises, the dark circles under her eyes, the gaunt hollows of her cheeks. 

“I’m fine.”

Leia huffed, a soft sound that reminded her so much of Ben it _hurt._ It was the sound he made when he couldn’t believe her stubbornness, an almost-laugh she’d never hear again. She wasn’t fine; how could she be? How could Leia _?_

“Why?” she burst out. “How can you be so calm about this? You were his mother! You sent him away, let him struggle alone for _years_ and he still—” She broke off, wrestling with the sob clawing at her throat. Her eyes were burning again. 

There was a sharper sadness to Leia’s presence now, deep and awful, but no anger. No bitterness. She waited until Rey regained her composure.

“The last time I saw my brother, he told me something.” For a heartbeat, her gaze turned distant. Then she blinked, and it sharpened once more. “No one’s ever really gone.”

The nothingness behind her breastbone gnawed at her. _Gone,_ it whispered. _Gone, gone, gone._

“You can’t really believe that. You’re Force-sensitive. I know—” She swallowed, throat tight. She forced the words out anyway. “I know you felt him die.”

“I have to believe it,” she said. For the first time since Rey met her, she sounded old. Frail. “Otherwise, what was it all for? My parents, my planet, my life’s work. Han. Luke.” She sighed, shoulders dipping under the weight of her grief. “I have to believe my son is… still out there. Somehow.”

Empty, aching, Rey wished she could find the same faith.

They sat quietly for a long time. Weak as she was, Rey could still feel the Force shimmering around them as dawn broke and the planet came to life. 

_A power like life itself._

A lie. If it were true, Ben would be here. She’d have more left of him than a ragged black undershirt and a crossguard saber she couldn’t bear to ignite, more than a handful of memories. A lifetime with him instead of a fleeting kiss goodbye. 

The warmth of a hand on her shoulder startled her out of her thoughts. 

“Get some rest, Rey.”

Leia’s eyes were just like Ben’s. A warm deep brown, flecked with hints of gold, waiting to catch the light. _Sad eyes,_ she thought. 

“Take whatever time you need. There’s work to be done, but you don’t have to be the one to do it.” She squeezed Rey’s shoulder, grip strong and sure, and then the General was gone, sweeping out of the _Falcon_ and taking the painful hope of her Force signature with her. 

_No one’s ever really gone_ was just one more lie, but Leia’s parting words eased a worry she hadn’t realized was churning away at the back of her mind, hidden behind the anger and grief. The Resistance expected her to be a Jedi, but she just— couldn’t. She couldn’t be a Jedi. Couldn’t pretend she was fine. 

She didn’t have to stay. The relief was almost painful, realizing she didn’t have to smile past the ache in her chest, surrounded by people who thought they knew her. Didn’t have to bite her cheek until it bled when people congratulated her for beating Palpatine, as if it hadn’t cost her everything; as if she hadn’t lost half her soul in the shadow of the Sith throne. 

Her eyes were burning again. 

In, out. She counted breaths until the threat of tears faded and she felt like she could curl up beneath the blankets without giving in to the urge to sob. Sleep didn’t come easily, but when it did, her dreams were filled with the vibrant blue smear of starlines, carrying her toward the heavy, unknowable black of deep space. 

Dawn came with heavy rains. It was monsoon season; beneath the cloud cover, the jungle was green and wet and oppressively humid. It was a good day to leave. 

There was no need to tell Chewie. He took one look at her and that was enough. He grumbled softly and told her to take care. It wasn’t a proper goodbye, but she didn’t push. Chewie was sick of farewells. They had a way of becoming permanent, so it was just _fly safe, Rey,_ and _stay out of trouble._ A quick hug and then he was gone, striding off to the maintenance bay to give the _Falcon_ a once-over before she left. 

She said goodbye to Rose while she waited, the two of them huddled near the main hangar, talking quietly as Chewie ran a final systems check. 

Rose was back in her mechanic’s coveralls, messy with grease and oil stains. It was a change from the civvies she’d been sporting since Rey woke up.

“The General finally putting you back to work?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “Easing me back into things, at least. I’ll help with some major repairs and then I’ll head out to join Jannah and Finn.”

Good. That was… good. She hadn’t talked to Finn since she woke up. She could feel him in the Force, and she knew he could feel her, but she’d made no effort to contact him more directly. It was selfish, maybe, but she didn’t think she could stomach the forgiveness he would offer. She didn’t want to be forgiven. 

Faint as starlight, memory drifted through her mind: _You’re still holding on. Let go._

Ben was gone. What was there to let go of?

She forced herself to focus on Rose. 

“That’s good,” she said, aware she’d been silent a beat too long. “Tell them hello for me, will you?”

“I will.” 

Behind them, Chewie fired up the sublights. The _Falcon_ was ready.

Abruptly, she was aware she’d never thanked Rose for sitting with her in the med bay, never pushing, just— there. Offering what comfort she could. She winced, ashamed, but before she could say anything, Rose pulled her into a hug. 

She was smaller than Rey, but solid and strong. Rey let herself cling, just for a moment. Just long enough to breathe in some of that strength. Rose’s eyes were bright with tears when they separated, but she was smiling.

“It’ll be okay,” she told Rey. The statement was heavy with a quiet, personal grief, but the words were only a little wobbly.

“Your sister,” Rey said slowly. “That’s why Leia took you off the active mission roster.”

Rose nodded. “She said I should take some time to grieve.” Her voice dropped in an impression of Leia’s smokier tones. “‘Force knows I never did,’ she told me. I think… I think she’s trying to stop me from making some of her mistakes.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed, a long rush of sound like a gust of wind. “You can keep moving, but eventually, whatever you’re running from will catch up. Seems like the General learned the hard way that it’s easier to face it when it doesn’t have years of momentum behind it.” She shrugged. “A break helped me. I hope it helps you.”

Behind her ribcage, the bond was painfully, achingly silent. 

“Yeah,” she whispered. The rain was relentless, like a river pouring down from the sky. It would make takeoff interesting. The sublights hummed beneath the sound of the deluge, low and steady. All she had to do was go. “Me too.”

Steady hands at the controls, the gentle brush of Leia’s Force signature against hers as she broke atmo and readied the hyperdrive, and then she was gone. Ajan Kloss disappeared in a heartbeat. Exhausted relief washed over her like a tide. 

It was the work of a few minutes to set the _Falcon_ on a steady, backwater course toward Yavin. She didn’t let herself examine why she’d picked that planet; she just plugged in the coordinates and crawled into bed, tired and alone. 

As worn out as she was, she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she laid awake and counted the star systems as they passed by. The _Falcon_ flew beautifully, no hiccups with the compressor, no sign of any lingering damage from Dameron’s misadventures.

Briefly, she wondered if Ben ever had a chance to fly his father’s ship. His Silencer made her think maybe he had, or at least that he’d wanted to. The TIE had flown like a dream when she’d stolen it from Kef Bir. It was a pilot’s ship through and through; unforgiving of even the slightest mistake, but incredible when handled correctly. A part of her still regretted setting it alight. 

Rey shook herself, trying to stuff thoughts of Ben and his ship back where they didn’t hurt so much. She wasn’t particularly successful. The _Falcon_ flew on through the darkness, carrying her toward Yavin’s moons and the ghosts of Ben’s past. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed a disjointed chorus of voices whispering to her from far away, telling her over and over again to let go, to hold on, trust in the Force—

 _Ben,_ she cried, sure in the way of dreams that he could hear her. _Come back, please, come back to me._

She woke up alone. Her cheeks were dry. Her chest ached as she swallowed down the sob trying to claw its way free. There were no voices. 

The hyperdrive thrummed dully in the back of the ship. Yavin was close. She rinsed her face with stiff, angry motions and changed into fresh clothes, the ones she’d worn back on Ahch-To. Looser on her frame than she remembered, they were too warm for Ajan Kloss—too warm for Yavin—but she shrugged them on anyway. Even after sitting so long in her pack, the worn gray fabric still smelled like the island. Saltwater and campfire smoke; memory crowded in, strong enough that she felt a phantom touch against her skin, ghostly fingers brushing hesitantly against hers. It made her shake. Made her _want._

She swore, yanking her hand away from nothing. There was nothing there; only the recycled air circulating through the ship, only emptiness, only Rey. 

_Only the Force._

She wanted to scream. _Stop taunting me! Stop fucking reminding me that he’s gone, that I’ll never tough him again, never—_

Instead, she bit her cheek until it bled and marched toward the cockpit. The approach and descent to Yavin IV wasn’t something she should leave to the bickering droid brains, no matter how shaken and restless she was feeling, so she winced at the taste of copper and set her focus on the controls, headed for the moon where so much had gone wrong. 

Maybe Yavin IV was a mistake. It was a dense jungle moon, as hot and oppressively humid as Ajan Kloss. She felt like she’d traveled the galaxy only to end up right back where she’d started; she would have packed up and left, except that she could almost _taste_ the past, pain and regret lingering like smoke in the heavy air. 

The _Falcon_ powered down and locked up tight in a clearing near the ruins of some ancient temple, Rey set out into the jungle, searching. At first, she simply wandered through the trees, swatting away bugs and trying to convince her lungs she was breathing air instead of soup, but eventually, the foliage thinned and gave way to the remnants of an old trail. She followed it to another clearing, this one strewn with rubble. Plascrete, stone, and rough-hewn wood: these were the huts that housed Luke’s students. 

She didn’t need to wonder which was Ben’s. Instinct guided her to the ruins at the edge of the clearing, set as far from the others as possible. _Always the outsider,_ she thought. _Always alone._

_You’re not alone._

She ignored the twinge of memory, moving toward the broken stone as if she were in a dream. Nothing felt real. The Force sang with loneliness, years of pain rolling over her like waves against the shore. She sank to the ground, heedless of the debris. She had to sit or else she’d fall; if only she’d known. 

_And done what?_ she asked herself acerbically. _Save him?_

 _Yes,_ a furious, fragile piece of her heart screamed, but it was a hopeless thought. She could no more go back in time than she could raise the dead. Ben was gone. There was nothing she could do now; nothing she could have done in the past, starving and mired in hope on Jakku. 

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that they’d both been so lonely, so broken and discarded only to find each other and have it ripped so cruelly away. Rage burned through her bones, the fury she’d tried to snuff out in the med bay roaring through her like wildfire. This time she couldn’t hold it back. 

“How dare you?” she screamed. The sound tore out of her, ripping at her throat, blasting into the humid air. “How dareyou connect us and then tear us apart!” She didn’t know who she was yelling at: the Jedi, the universe, the Force itself. She didn’t care. They all deserved it.

“You don’t give a shit about balance,” she snarled. It was hard to breathe, like the air was suddenly burning, or gone. She struggled for breath, chest aching, aching— 

Rey shoved the ache away and kept going. “You want balance? A new Jedi order? Well, I want Ben!” His name came out a sob. “Looks like nobody gets what they want!” Her lungs felt like they were about to burst. Black spots winked across her vision, the world suddenly smudged and hazy.

She gasped for air and found none. _Fuck you too,_ she thought. Then: _It all dies with me._ _No more Jedi. No more Sith._ Maybe the galaxy could finally start to heal. She took a vicious sort of satisfaction in that as the inky blackness closed in, and then she felt nothing at all. 

_The world was black and cold and empty._

_Everything burned. Skin, memory, hope. It hurt. Floating in the darkness between stars, so deep and absolute that it ached, it would have been so easy to just— let go._

_Instead: far away in the distance, a heart beat, faint and jagged and alone, the sound of it an anchor in the vastness of eternity. A name._

_Ben—_

She opened her eyes to starlight. Chunks of stone were digging into her back, sharp and painful. Rey winced as she hauled in an unsteady breath, blinking up at the sky and wishing desperately for answers.

The darkness above her glowed with the faint light of distant stars. The night air was blood-warm and heavy against her skin. It felt alive. She sat up, gasping a little as her head swam and the dark line of the horizon wobbled and tilted. 

“Karking hell,” she bit out, trying to steady herself. Reaching for the Force on instinct, she nearly shouted at what she found. It was roaring around her, eddying out in furious waves like she was a rock dropped into still water, sinking through the universe, her existence rippling out and disturbing the balance. 

_I am not drunk enough for this._

Never mind that she didn’t have any alcohol, or that she’d never been more than slightly tipsy off of the cheap ale that was passed around for toasts in the mess hall. Everything felt _wrong_ , the world off-kilter and ill at ease, and she couldn’t face it sober. 

She hauled herself back to the _Falcon_ , dizzy and sore, and steadfastly refused to think about the Force, or balance, or the tense blank ache of the bond. A hasty rummage through the cabinets in the captain’s quarters revealed an ancient bottle of whiskey, label faded and peeling. The first swig burned. So did the second. By the fifth, the burn had turned to a pleasant warmth and the world was going soft around the edges. 

_Like before,_ she thought dimly. _Just not bad._

Maybe the Force was nothing more than the metaphysical equivalent of cheap booze. It did strange things to people, made them stupid and reckless, and most of them came crawling back for more, chasing something they wouldn’t ever find. Maybe she should slow down. 

The bottle hung loosely in her grasp. It thumped dully against her leg as she gave up on standing and sank down into the mattress. The room spun in lazy circles around her, but she wasn’t sure if that was the whiskey or the Force. Earlier, it had— grabbed her and shaken her like a vornskr shaking hapless prey, hungry for blood, ready to snap her neck. She’d yelled, and she’d been disciplined. 

No wonder the Jedi were so afraid of the dark. If they ignored it, fought it, beat it back, they could pretend the Force was benevolent. The world tilted again as she cocked her head, considering. She could almost hear Luke’s scorn echoing in the room. _Failure. Hypocrisy. Hubris._

The Force roiled around her, boiling and churning. She was so tired.

Clumsily, she set the bottle down next to the bed and burrowed beneath the covers. Tangled in the sheets, she closed her eyes and narrowed her awareness until all she could hear was her heartbeat, all she could feel was her pulse. Her sense of the Force faded and dimmed. It would come rushing back as she slept, but she didn’t care. Mind empty in a way that didn’t hurt for once, she surrendered herself to the pull of dreamless sleep.

A headache pounded at her temples for most of the next day, and new bruises bloomed across her skin, dark tender spots joining the tapestry of fading yellows and greens, but she was— fine. She was fine. Just… not ready to face Yavin IV again. There was too much pain. Too many ghosts. 

She stayed in the _Falcon_ , finding work to keep her hands busy as she sifted through her thoughts. The Force still raged and surged around her, but it was easier to tune out when she wasn’t starved for air or drunk on the sharp burn of whiskey. There was even a kind of pattern to it, like the ocean battering the shores of Ahch-To. Nothing she could control, let alone predict, but somehow regular all the same. It simply _was._

So she let it be and worked. She checked the sublights and the hyperdrive. Straightened the blankets. Retrieved the bottle from the floor, dusted it off and returned it to the cabinet. Buried haphazardly beneath all the junk she’d moved in her search for the whiskey were the Jedi texts. 

_Look_ ,something whispered. The Force, one of Yavin’s ghosts, her own desperate hope; what did it matter what it was? The sound was the rush of wind in the desert, the susurrus roar of the sea. It was memory, a smooth deep voice whispering to her in the tense silence of an interrogation room. 

_So lonely,_ it said. _Desperate. You imagine an ocean._

She didn’t want to remember. 

“Fine!” she nearly yelled, frustrated and heartsick. “It won’t fix anything.”

Still, she hauled the books out into the main hold, thunking them down carelessly on the dejarik table. She picked one at random, flipping through pages of cramped script. Crystals, meditations, lightsaber forms… it was nothing she hadn’t seen before. 

_An ocean,_ Ben’s voice crooned at her. Her eyes burned with tears. It sounded so _real_ , like he was in the room with. _I see it… I see the island._

She saw it too: the flickering firelight, the close darkness of the stone hut. The touch of his hand, so warm and alive after the awful chill of the mirror—

It washed over her like the tide, a cascade of everything she’d been trying to shut away since she woke up in the med bay with half her soul missing. Maz, eyes dark and full of sorrow on Takodana. Leia, clinging fiercely to hope as she waded through years of grief. Luke pushing past his pain to try and teach her. Her own reflection, begging for answers in the darkness of Ahch-To’s mirror cave, reaching out for a shadow she couldn’t quite grasp...

 _They’re never coming back, but there’s someone who still could_ , and _no one’s ever really gone_ , and _powerful light, powerful darkness,_ and finally her own voice in an endless refrain: _please, please, please._

She flung the book aside, scrabbling for the volume with the tattered gray cover, the one she knew was filled with ancient maps, each one crisscrossed with lines she’d never been able to make sense of. They weren’t hyperlanes, weren’t borders. The lines sprawled in wild loops around planets and stars, connecting across impossible distances, gathering around fixed points seemingly at random. The pages were papery thin beneath her fingers; trembling, she did her best not to tear them as she rifled through the book. 

There. 

Ahch-To—the island—wrapped in swooping lines, some faint, some strong. The boldest of them all curved off in the same direction. She traced a shaking path along the faded ink and gasped when it took her to the seething mass of Exegol. 

For the first time in months, the ache in her chest wasn’t anguish; it was hope. 

It sat like an ember behind her ribs, a burning pain that threw just enough light, just enough heat to keep her going. She left the jungle behind, setting a course for Ahch-To. The droid brains whirred and clicked at her when she plugged in the coordinates; the unknowable spark of life that powered them seemed as nervous and determined as she was. 

She pored over the Jedi texts as the _Falcon_ slid through the stars, far away enough from the major hyperlanes that she could devote all her attention to the books. What she came away with wasn’t much, but it was more than she’d had before. 

Ahch-To’s mirror cave was a vergence; a nexus, a place where the Force gathered and deepened, opening doors that were otherwise shut tight. A vergence by itself wouldn’t have done any good, but the island was more than that. It was connected to Exegol, a pathway between planets like a path between two hearts. Like the bond, silver-dark and gleaming as it drew Rey and Ben together. Powerful light, powerful darkness. 

The gloom of the cave, the flare of a lightsaber chasing away the shadows gathered around the Sith throne; mirrors and binaries, all of it. There was a chance. She just didn’t know if it would be enough.

_A dyad in the Force. A power like life itself._

She grit her teeth even as she let the whispers rush through her. They’d come more frequently since that moment on Yavin IV, voices familiar and unknown urging her on. Hold on, let go, balance, balance, balance. 

_There’s a chance,_ she told herself, clinging to it like a mantra. _Force be damned, I’m going to take it._

The journey felt endless. She read the texts once, twice, three times before she gave up and retreated to the cockpit. Starlines burned electric blue all around her, afterimages seared into vision even when her eyes were closed. The Force still beat at her like the sea against the shore, harsh and unrelenting. It got worse the closer she came to Ahch-To. She tried to push through it, to stay awake as she neared the planet, but less than a day out, she finally had to give in and sleep.

She dreamed of starless darkness and burning hope. A heart beating in the silence, a name said over and over again like a prayer. The brush of one hand against another. 

_Wait for me,_ she sent out into the Force, into the cold dark void of the bond. _I’m coming._

Ahch-To welcomed her back with rain and howling winds. The Force was a storm brewing around her, as potent and ominous as the mountains of dark clouds on the horizon. Thunder snarled in the distance. She was soaked to the bone the instant she stepped out of the _Falcon_ , but she didn’t care. 

Rey picked her way over the slick grass of the hillsides until she reached the cliff face. The wind lashed at her, driving rain into her skin, but she was numb to the pain. All she could feel was the maelstrom of power billowing around her and the emptiness of the bond, aching and aching in her chest. 

The descent down to the beach took hours. When she finally made it to the yawning mouth of the cave, still draped in that strange pattern of sea wrack, she was shaking with exhaustion and cold. Common sense told her to turn back, to wait out the storm and try again, but she couldn’t make herself do it. The cave was right there. The mirror, and Ben.

Ben had waited long enough.

She didn’t give herself a second chance to back out. She sucked in a lungful of salty air and dove. 

The water was dark and furiously cold. Her muscles seized, breath escaping in a rush of bubbles. For a long moment, terror wiped out all thought. She was frozen, sinking helplessly into deeper water. No one knew where she was. The Force ebbed around her, the storm’s rage suddenly dying away. The change was abrupt enough to shock her into motion. She forced her arms into a basic stroke, kicking out with cramped legs until she broke the surface, hauling in frantic gulps of air. 

_Sithspit_ , she thought, all venom. _I’m not dying. Not now, not when I’m this close._

It took ages to haul herself out of the water. Her skin was worryingly gray, tinged with blue, but she’d come this far already. The mirror waited, blank and quiescent. She staggered toward it, collapsing in an ungraceful heap before she could arrange her limbs into a meditative pose. Her heartbeat was slow and far away.

The mirror was smooth and cold beneath her hands. Featureless. No sign of her own reflection, not even a hint of the shadowy figure she’d hoped so desperately was her mother, her father. Someone to call her own. 

_Two that are one._

Ben’s voice?

 _I’m here._ She sent the thought out with all her strength, toward the mirror and the endless static of the bond, out into the vast storm of the Force. _I’m here. Be with me._

It hurt. It felt like she was ripping out her heart. He was so close, but something was wrong—

“Oh, child,” a voice said. “Stop.” 

She didn’t recognize it. All she knew was that it wasn’t Ben. A sob cracked in her chest, wheezing helplessly out of her throat. _Ben—_

Gentle hands grasped her wrist, pulling her away from featureless ice. She wrenched her gaze from the mirror. A woman stared back at her, sad eyes in a wind-worn face. She was limned in blue, and she looked strangely familiar. 

“Who are you?” Rey croaked.

Her smile was a desert sunrise, beautiful but fleeting. 

“Shmi,” she said. “I’m Shmi Skywalker.” 

The first name was unfamiliar, but that surname…

“Did you—” Rey broke off, trying to gather herself and make sense of what was happening. She was so cold. “Did you know Luke?”

“Not in life,” she said. “But I know my grandson all the same.” She held Rey’s hands like they were precious. Her touch felt like starlight, faint and glittering and impossibly distant. For some reason, it made her want to cry.

“Ben—” she started, choking on his name. “Help me,” she finally managed. “Please. Help me. I don’t know how to save him.”

“You helped him save himself,” Shmi said, her voice low and warm. It blew over her like wind, and some of the terrible chill eased. “And he saved you in turn.”

“Balance,” Rey whispered. It didn’t feel like balance, with the Force raging around her and the knot of pain in her chest, endless and black, but—

“It’s not.” Shmi’s eyes were wells of sorrow, but her voice was still that warm wind. “A dyad, one half withering away in life while the other is held unchanging in death? That’s no balance at all. The Force wants to… correct it, I suppose. But you were right, back on that jungle moon. The Force simply _is._ It doesn’t care about humans or their hearts.”

Her mind flashed through dark water, burning air and creeping blackness in the aftermath of her rage. Would her death balance the scales?

“No.” No longer a warm wind: this was the breath of the goddess, the X'us'R'iia sweeping across the desert to scour away everything that displeased her. “The Force may not care, but I do. And I will not stand by and watch as it destroys my family yet again.” She sighed, and the fury receded. “I couldn’t save my son, but I can do this for him. I can do this for his daughter.”

Shmi’s starlit grip turned solid. She pulled Rey to her feet and guided her hands back to the mirror. Her hands came to rest on Rey’s; even through the luminescent blue, Rey could tell they’d seen a lifetime of hardship.

“I was a slave in the desert,” she said. “As my son was.” Power streamed from her like a current, flowing into Rey like water into parched sand. “That ends now.”

The world turned blue. 

“Bring him back, Rey.”

Blue, and shining, brimful of power. The world was the mirror, the Force, the weight of Shmi’s sorrow and the ache in her chest. 

“Ben,” she called, and the word echoed in the cave like thunder. “Ben, come back—”

Solidity faded back into starlight, faint and drifting, scattering like grains of sand. 

_Mother_ , a voice called. It sounded very young. _Mother!_ A little boy, crying out from the heart of the Force. 

More power swept over her, a surge of fire, burning, burning—

_There is no death, there is the Force._

They stumbled out of the cave, barely able to walk. Ben was rail-thin, bruised as she was, but alive, alive, alive. She couldn’t stop touching him, running her hands over his back, his chest, his face. 

“Rey,” he said. There was a universe of things unspoken in the sound of his voice on her name. Joy. Disbelief. A love as fierce as the stars. “Rey—”

She cut him off with a kiss. It was nothing like the one they shared on Exegol; this was gentle, sweet. They had time now. They had the rest of their lives. And yet: they kissed until his breath came short and he pressed his forehead to hers, eyes closed, savoring her presence. She could feel hunger curling through his blood, desperate and giddy. 

“Come on,” she murmured, pressing the words into his skin. The wind was gone. The rain had gentled. She laced her fingers through his and tugged him toward the steep path up the cliff, bound for the shelter of the stone huts. 

By the time they reached the top, exhaustion had set in. They staggered into the nearest hut, empty save for a dusty pallet and a small pile of wood. Where she found the energy to spark a fire, she’d never know. Dizzy from the effort, she let Ben pull her into the shelter of his embrace. Thin as he was, his chest was still wide and solid. She leaned back against it. This time, when the tears came, she didn’t fight them.

“Oh, Rey,” he said. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I never meant to leave you.” 

She sobbed, letting months of pain flood out like a dam giving way. His arms tightened around her, holding her safe.

_You’re not alone._

He whispered it through the bond—no longer starless, no longer aching—and repeated it out loud, over and over, as many times as she needed to hear it. They drifted into sleep like that, clutching each other as the fire burned against the night. No Luke to interrupt, no war to tear them apart. Just this. Just them. 

_You’re not alone._

Morning found them twined together. She ran her hands over his ribs and thought of the gnawing hunger she’d carried with her since Exegol. 

“Two that are one,” he said quietly. Then, raw: “You kept me alive, wherever I was.”

She pressed a kiss to his chest, just above the steady beat of his heart. _Alive,_ each beat said. _Alive. Alive._

“What do you remember?”

His face was solemn. “Darkness,” he said. “Endless cold. And your heartbeat. I tried to reach you, but—” He broke off. 

“But neither of us could manage it alone.”

The bond was wide open and singing between them. Her memories were his. He could feel the sharp pain of her palms against the mirror, hear the gentle warmth of Shmi’s voice. The impossible strength. 

_I can do this for him. I can do this for his daughter._

It was a gift she’d never be able to repay. Starlight shimmered through her thoughts, the ghost of a ghost. _Bring him back, Rey. Bring him home._

“Home,” he said, voice still so raw. “Rey…” He hauled her into his arms, burying his face in her neck. Hot tears splashed against her skin. 

“Your mother is waiting,” she said. Her voice was a match for his. “She never gave up on you.”

“Where?”

“Ajan Kloss. It’s a jungle moon in the Cademimu sector.”

He stayed silent, caught in the grip of terrified hope.

“It’s a long flight,” she finally ventured. “And I’ll be—”

He pulled away and cut her off with a fierce kiss. His lips were desperate on hers, frantic, and she couldn’t help but respond in kind. There was no gentleness now, no patience. Rey didn't care. Everything was need and heat. The fire had long since guttered out; she should have been cold, but instead, she was burning up. 

“Ben,” she said, breathless. She could feel his heart thundering in his chest. “Please—”

Neither of them lasted very long. They shoved their clothing out of the way, gasping at the feel of skin on skin. The jut of bone, the tender ache of bruises; it didn't matter. Fumbling, clumsy, they moved together until the universe narrowed to their bodies, to the bond, to radiant, dazzling heat.

Sunlight crept through gaps in the stone walls. The darkness was soft and tender. They held each other, hearts racing in a single shared rhythm, and breathed. Around them, the Force was quiet. 

“I know,” he said into the hush, tangling their fingers together. His voice was calm and sure, two words that carried memory and second chances both. “I know. Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's day, starfleetjedi! 
> 
> your "rey goes and gets her man" prompt was fabulous; i loved getting the chance to write rey working through some of her trauma and interacting with ladies, and i couldn't resist retconning bits and pieces of tros as i went. if jj doesn't respect established canon then why should i? anyway! i hope the story lives up to your expectations :)
> 
> title from nobody knows by the lumineers


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